Rainy Days & Mondays
by RisingMercury
Summary: A popular Degrassi character is forced to reflect the implications of the rain and their actions.


A/N: Inspired by lovely The Carpenters' music and rainy days in Southern California along with a desire to take a deeper, empathetic look into a specific character. As always, constructive critiscm is always very much appreciated!

**Rainy Days & Mondays**

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Every time the rain begins to pelt down on the asphalt, my stomach turns. It literally makes me sick to my stomach. Yet I can't resist from bolting for the door, running right_into_ the storm instead of away from it like any sane person would do. Instinctively, I find myself out there again, in the midst of it, arms limp at my sides, just staring directly into it all… into that massive black mess of raindrops and perpetual problems.

I could swear each drop makes my skin burn – but someone would surely accuse me of being overdramatic. Not a second would pass since the declaration had slipped past my lips that someone,_anyone_, would instantly crush it with a, "Oh stop it, you're totally exaggerating." But I could swear each ominous drop makes my skin_crawl _with uncertainty. Each drop seeps into my pores and calls out my lies.

Maybe if I shut my eyes tight enough, if I feel hard enough, if I care passionately enough, I could pinpoint in one of these raindrops the exact time when my life spiraled in the wrong direction. Each drop morphs into an evident consequence resulting from one of my many reckless decisions. Each one marking a haunting casualty. And then I wonder… how long will I be paying for my mistakes? How long would these rain drops keep falling over me, pounding their irritating and disturbing truth into me?

The rain has that effect on things. It has this incredibly annoying attribute of purifying and cleansing everything. Of washing away the blood. And yet ironically, they cloud everything up and make every road you choose to take, an unforgivable slippery one.

I hate the fucking rain.

I don't want to be purified. I could blame a million different things, could invent an array of colorful excuses for the things I've done, but when it comes right down to it, it was my fault. It's always been my fault. God, it's doing it already. It's bringing out the truth in me. Eating away at my conscious and suffocating me with guilt. Its little stupid atoms breaking my will, tearing apart my lies or whatever. I never meant for it to happen this way.

Never.

But that's something that can't change. Once people have all these pitiful preconceived notions about you in their sick and warped minds, there isn't much left you can do to drastically change it all. There is no small, black rewind button. No undo option. Those crystal raindrops will keep vertically plunging and the preconceived notions will continue to flourish. So why try to stop it? It'd be absurd. Like telling the clouds to just go away, and come back another day like you do when you're a kid – when you don't know any better. Like telling the rain to stop falling that night.

But the rain wouldn't even stop at the cry of those screeching tires. So I had had a couple of beers that night. Big fucking deal. Why is it so excruciatingly hard to forgive me?

It's all so fucking overwhelming all the time. Fighting against the entire world. Having to justify myself. These raindrops are unstoppable on a Monday afternoon. They just keep continually falling one after another, bringing the storm at maximum velocity to drown everything in its path.

To drown me, to drown him.

The musty air in that god-forsaken car had fogged up the windows again that night. Somehow I was more aware of the alcohol oozing through my system than I usually am. It was almost as though I had felt it destroying brain cells and dreams without even caring to distinguish the difference between the two. And even now, when I close my eyes, I can still see the body rolling on top of the car, in perfect slow motion, like some surreal scene unraveling before me that I wasn't meant to be a part of. But I was.

"Manny!"

That's the third time she's called me. Take a god damn hint, Emma Nelson. I don't want to go inside. Back to that night. I _felt_ the bones cracking and the flesh bruising, felt it deep within me, binding me forever to that sinister night. Felt that person's life ending as I selfishly and recklessly snatched it away from them. I had lost control for just a goddamn second…

"Manny! Come inside, you're going to catch pneumonia!"

For the first time…for the first time, I actually wish such an illness would consume my body viciously. Maybe then the world would realize I'm just as susceptible as Emma Nelson, as Paige Michalchuk, as anyone else, for that matter. Maybe then it would be clear that I'm not this complete and utter disaster waiting to prey on its next victim.

But it's all pathetic wishful thinking. As soon as I go back inside, that howling rain will stop, the taunting clouds will part and all will be left just as before, with only a few scattered raindrops as testimony of the storm.

And everything will go back to how it usually is without a trace of change. Only this time, I will feel the sullen burden of my definitive mistake upon my shoulders. When the unspeakable confession manages to escape my lips, only one thing will matter:

**The rain callously condemned me and now it will have to unquestionably forgive me.**


End file.
